Trent Preszler

They're not.

Just like, you know, something like IKEA furniture, there's some research that shows that the average lifespan of IKEA furniture is about seven years.

The average lifespan of an artificial Christmas tree is about 10 years.

Nothing can replace a real tree.

The smell, the texture, and the imperfections of it, the things that kind of remind us of our childhood still hold so much power.

And a lot of baby boomers actually switched to artificial trees after their kids left the house.

And they did so for a couple reasons.

The first was convenience, because, well, now I don't have the mess of the needles, and it's just a lot easier, and I don't have to go through the hassle.

um and the second was i think for many people they felt like well i'm no longer tied to those childhood traditions because my children are no longer at home and then i've heard as i traveled the country you're not the only person i have heard this from that you switch to the artificial and then you miss the real

I have heard that so many times from people that they do it for the reasons I just described, but then it kind of makes them miss the magic of a real tree.

Well, you're right.

The original Christmas trees were basically toilet brushes, bristle brushes attached to these wire stands and then spray painted green.

They were so clumsy and weird.

And then we had the era of the ever gleam trees, the silver metallic trees that were terrible fire hazards and burnt down some American homes.

And then the first generation of what I would call plastic trees, the modern plastic Christmas trees just looked fake.

And there's one company in particular, Balsam Hill Brands, that has really revolutionized the artificial tree market in the last, let's say, 10 years.

And their artificial trees now look shockingly realistic.

And they identified the thing that you just did, which is that

And the fake trees were looking too fake.

So they worked with their suppliers in China.